by T. W. Connor
“Randall?” I guessed.
“Who else?” Marlon asked, slipping his glove off and throwing up a sliding mechanism that I hadn’t noticed before next to the doorknob. He put his palm on the screen he’d exposed, and the door popped open, seemingly none the worse for wear after someone had gone axe murderer on it. “Luckily, this door isn’t actually wood. Or rather, it is, but only on the outside. Inside, it’s solid titanium. Very light. Very strong. Stronger even than an axe.”
I glanced at him, both eyebrows raised. “I’m getting awfully tired of all the fancy toys without any explanation.”
He mirrored my expression. “And I’m getting awfully tired of having to keep secrets, believe me. I’ll tell you everything this afternoon, and that’s a promise. But first, let’s get that little girl stitched up.”
I accepted that offer and preceded him into the house, wondering briefly how long Randall had spent chopping at that door—and wishing I’d seen his face when he realized he wasn’t going to be able to get in.
The thought was immediately overruled by another as I tried to remember how to get down to the surgical suite.
“Give her to me,” Marlon said, appearing suddenly at my side. “And follow me downstairs. I’m going to need an assistant.”
We shuffled Zoe from my arms into his, and before he took off, I got rid of the coats, dropping them to the floor and counting on them to stay there until we got back. Then we were pouring down the stairs—Marlon more gently than me—and making for the surgical area of his house. As we went, I started taking stock of the house again, noticing things that I hadn’t noticed before, and remembering things that I’d forgotten. The long hallways with too many doors opening up off them. The sheer number of completely decorated and ready-to-live-in rooms we passed. The fact that even when Marlon had been gone for several days, and we’d just now come back inside, the house was well-lit and warm.
It was almost as if it had some sort of AI controlling things like that. Something that kept the house hospitable even when there was no one in residence. And the number of rooms still bothered me. This place looked more like a halfway house than a single man’s dwelling. A halfway house with incredibly strange decorations, and hyperactive heat and electricity—at a time when everyone else’s electricity had gone out.
I reminded myself that Marlon had promised to give me the information that I was craving this afternoon, and kept my mouth shut. Right now, surgery. This afternoon, answers.
The surgical room was right where I remembered it to be, and looked exactly the same, with the counters running along the sides and the cupboards all carefully and neatly shut. The last time I’d been in here the place had been cluttered with the tools he’d used to stitch Angie up, but he must have gone through and cleaned everything up while Angie and I were otherwise engaged, because the place now looked as if no one had ever so much as stepped in here.
It took him next to no time to fix that. He laid Zoe carefully on the table and swept around the room like a hurricane, gathering tools and supplies from various drawers and cupboards. Within minutes, he was standing next to her and very carefully spreading her out on the table, stretching her arms down to her sides and straightening her legs.
I grimaced at what I could see of her wounds, though I’d been wondering for some time how bad they actually were. Looking at them now, I realized that they were a milder version of Angie’s own wounds. One of Zoe’s legs had been ripped open from her knee to her ankle, and though the wound didn’t look horribly deep, I could see the layer of fat that meant it was deep enough to be incredibly painful. Her arm had been mauled as well, but that wound was smaller.
I still didn’t think she’d broken any bones, but Marlon was testing for that as I watched. He stretched her arm a bit, then rotated it back and forth, watching her face closely.
“Does this hurt?” he asked. “Does it feel like something’s not working right?”
“It hurts,” she moaned. “But I don’t think it’s broken.”
He tipped his head at that, surprised, and she gave him the ghost of a grin.
“I’ve had broken bones before, mister. I know what it feels like.”
Marlon came quickly back into himself and nodded. “I’m going to give you something to make it stop hurting, and then I’m going to give you some stitches. Once I’m done, you’ll be as good as new. Okay?”
She agreed quickly, and he got to work.
23
We left Zoe sleeping afterward, covered her with a blanket, and even left a note telling her where we’d gone, in case she woke up. I didn’t think it likely, given how much she’d been through, but I didn’t want her to wake up and think we’d deserted her or something.
Then we pounded back up the stairs, grabbed our jackets from off the ground, and rushed back out into the freezing world.
“She’ll be out for an hour, at least,” Marlon said as we strode forward into the open area around his house. “I would guess that she’ll sleep until dinner and wake up ravenous.”
“And she’ll be okay?” I asked for the thirteenth time. “She’s not going to have blood poisoning or anything like that?”
“She’ll be fine, John,” Marlon told me for the thirteenth time. “I was able to disinfect both areas, and I didn’t see any signs of necrosis. No tissue death, no wolf teeth left in her flesh. The wounds stitched up very cleanly. I can’t guarantee that she won’t have scars, but I can tell you that I think she’s going to heal just fine.”
Right. He’d told me that already. I just wanted to make sure. Again.
And then I realized I had other questions. And that right now was the ideal time to ask them.
“Were you ever really a doctor?” I asked. “Before you went into whatever service you ended up in, I mean.”
He paused at that, and for a long moment, I didn’t think he was going to answer.
“I was,” he finally said. “I’ve wanted to be a doctor ever since I can remember, so I worked hard in high school to get the grades to get into a good school. I was pre-med, of course, and then went to the best medical school I could afford. I practiced for ten years before I realized that I wanted to do even more with my life. Even more to help humanity.”
Well that was more than I’d ever heard from him about his background. But it still wasn’t the whole truth. And I wanted to know the whole truth. Because I was starting to think that that whole truth might have something to do with what was going on around us.
“And then you…” I said, trying to lead him into the rest of the story.
He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye and cast me a quick grin. “And then I took the next step,” he said slyly. “But that’s a story that needs to be told to people beyond you, and I don’t want to tell it twice. Come on. I promised Bob that we would get out there and find them before they got lost and before darkness fell, and we’re already going to be walking a very fine line in that regard.”
He darted forward before I could say anything in response, and I was left to clamber after him, slogging through the snow at a run for what I prayed would be the last time today.
We found the group of townspeople relatively quickly, to my surprise, since they’d made faster progress than I’d expected. We’d been running for what I thought must have been a mile through the woods when we were suddenly surrounded by the sound of people. People talking, people laughing—a little bit—and people crunching through the snow, seemingly stepping on every stick they could find.
It could have been the silence of the world around us, or the fact that sounds were magnified by the presence of the snow, but I snorted in frustration.
“God, if Randall is truly chasing us then he’ll be able to hear them from a mile away,” I muttered. “We should have told them to at least try to stay quiet on their way here.”
“And scare them even more?” Marlon asked quietly as we moved toward the sound. “You know as well as I do that they don’t understand what’s goi
ng on or why. They’ve just been attacked and forced out of their homes by people who actually shot at them. Now they’ve been marched through the woods to a stranger’s house, on the promise from their mayor that they’ll find shelter there. I’m shocked that we haven’t had more trouble from them. We don’t need to frighten them by telling them that they need to be quiet or they’ll risk the very man who just shot up their town finding them again.”
“Right. Good point,” I agreed, giving myself a mental slap for not having thought of it from that angle.
Then I saw the first of the group, and among them, I saw a woman with a leg that glowed in the sunlight. A leg that was currently encased in metal. My eyes flew from that leg up to her face, and I felt my heart seize up at the sight of her.
I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been about her—about our daughter, and their safety—until the moment when I saw her again. And then I was running, my feet barely hitting the snow in their hurry to get to her. I swept her into my arms and buried my nose in her hair, inhaling her scent in pure relief at her presence.
“Angie,” I whispered. “Thank God you’re here.”
She dropped to the ground and pulled back, her gaze meeting mine. “How’s Zoe? What happened? Did you get her back in one piece?”
“She’s fine,” I told her. “Marlon got her down into the surgery, checked her for broken bones, did some disinfecting, and stitched her up. She’ll be as good as new in no time. She’s a tough one.”
I saw Angie’s shoulders sag in relief, and realized that the entire group must have been on pins and needles, waiting to hear what had happened to the little girl. We’d run right past them without even thinking about stopping and left them in horrible suspense.
“How did she get away from her family?” I asked. “Where were her parents?”
“Danny was asleep, and Rhonda was so busy with the other kids that she didn’t even notice Zoe was gone,” Angie said. “And don’t say anything to her about it. She already feels bad enough that she’s been throwing up ever since. She doesn’t need you piling on as well.”
I swallowed the next thing I was going to say—which had indeed been a criticism of Danny and Rhonda—and nodded. “I’ll take your word for it. Come on, let’s get you guys into some shelter.”
I turned around and found Marlon already marshaling the troops, so to speak. He was standing with Bob and gesturing back toward the house as he spoke to the group of people, who were all intent on his words. They all looked incredibly tired—and worried—and I realized at that moment that we needed to get them to shelter as quickly as possible. These people had been pushed far beyond their means, when they were tired, hungry, and scared. Some of them were probably close to dropping, and the stress of not knowing where they were going or why had to be weighing heavily on them.
I’d been so sidetracked by Zoe’s injury that I’d forgotten my commitment to the rest of the townspeople. And I’d certainly forgotten about Randall.
His memory came flooding back into my head now, though, and I added another reason to the list of motivations for getting the people to shelter.
Randall was out there, somewhere, possibly searching for us. Possibly already following us, and possibly right on our tail. My eyes flew instinctively to the forest our group had just come out of, and I scanned the trees, looking for something—anything—that indicated the presence of men who wanted to do us harm.
I didn’t see anything. But that didn’t mean they weren’t there. And it didn’t change my mind about getting these people to the buildings on Marlon’s compound.
“Let’s go,” I muttered to Angie. “The sooner everyone is inside, getting warm and resting, the sooner I can stop worrying about Randall catching us out here in the wilderness and taking advantage of the fact that we’re unprepared.”
24
The moment we arrived at Marlon’s house, we started assigning housing. I sent Angie into the main house with Rhonda and Danny so they could see Zoe, and then turned to Marlon.
“Right, so where are we putting people?” I asked bluntly. “I want them inside, out of the cold, and resting. We worry about food after we’ve got everyone assigned. You said you had room for everyone. Now’s the time to prove it.”
I looked around, trying to remember what I knew of the place. He’d mentioned several outbuildings, and I remembered that there was in fact a barn—where I’d found the sleds we’d used to get Angie on the road when she was injured. But I didn’t remember anything else.
I also hadn’t gone that far out into the property. I’d been in a bit of a hurry at the time.
“Everyone can come into the house,” Marlon answered, his tone far more casual than mine.
That stopped me in my tracks, and I stared at him. “Marlon, there are around two hundred people who need shelter. Some of them are couples, but some aren’t. And there are an awful lot of kids who need space as well.”
He never even looked away from me. Didn’t even have to take time to think about it or do any quick math in his head.
“And I’m telling you, there’s room for all of them in the house,” he replied. “I’ll be at the top of the stairs into the basement. Send them in, and make sure they’re in family groups. I’ll forward them to their assigned spots.”
He turned and left without adding anything else, and I actually stood there and stared, caught too much by surprise to think of anything to say. Yeah, I’d known there were a ton of extra rooms in that place. I’d seen all the extra beds and wondered what they were for—wondered if Marlon was running some sort of hotel or something. I’d thought it more likely that he’d had a very large family at some point, and something had happened to them.
The idea that there was room for a full two hundred people in that building, though… That had never occurred to me. Because it was bordering on unbelievable. Bordering on being outright fantastical.
I glanced up, trying to figure out how it could possibly be true. The house was three stories tall, yes, and wasn’t pretty. It was economical more than anything else. Just a sort of off-white box in the snow, with a peaked roof to keep the snow from sitting too heavy on the top and causing a cave-in. A purely efficient use of space, without any decorations whatsoever.
But even with how large the inside was, three stories didn’t give us enough space for two hundred people, I didn’t think.
Then I remembered the operating theatre in the basement. And I remembered that there were other staircases down there—ones I hadn’t gone into. They had to lead further downward. There had to be other levels underneath the one I’d seen.
What the hell was he doing living in a building that could house so many people? Why did this building even exist? And why out here in the middle of nowhere?
All questions that I was going to be asking him this afternoon, when we had our little chat.
“I can’t believe we have everyone settled in a room,” Bob said in surprise, looking around at the rest of us.
Bob, Marlon, Angie, and I were sitting in the kitchen. The townspeople were all settled into rooms and resting before we started worrying about dinner, and I didn’t think that was a bad idea. Most of the people were frozen half to death and too tired to even speak properly, and that particularly went for the older and younger sets.
Honestly, I was surprised we’d managed to get through that forced march with only one casualty. We’d discussed it and decided that it was best to give them all an hour to recover before we made them gather for food.
Which gave us an hour to wring information out of Marlon. He’d promised me answers. I wanted them. Because I needed to know who and what he was before we decided on our next step.
I turned to him and saw that he already knew what was coming. His face was carefully blank, his lips turned up in the start of a smile, his eyes on my own. He tipped his head as if in question—in invitation—and the smile grew.
“What are you two smiling at each other about?” Angie asked bluntly. �
��Is there something going on here? Do I need to be jealous?”
“We’re smiling,” Marlon said quietly, “because your husband has been waiting several days to be able to get me in a spot where he can ask me one or two very pointed questions about who I am and what I’m all about. How I managed to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time in order to save you two from the cold—and further, why I have a fully supplied operating suite in what appears to be the basement of my house. He’s wondering how a doctor from the middle of Michigan got to be so good at weapons, and why that doctor happened to have an exoskeleton that is military-grade material. He wants to know how exactly I know Randall, and what my dealings have been with him. I’m absolutely positive he wants to ask about this house of mirrors, and why it has so many rooms.” He pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes a bit. “And I expect he wants to ask who and what I am to the Intelligence Community and military, and what that means for him. And for his future.”
“That about covers it,” I answered quietly. “And I suggest you answer those questions in the most efficient way possible. Because we only have an hour before people start wandering up here, expecting food.”
Marlon shook his head, his face deadly serious. “We have deadlines at hand, young grasshopper, but they’re a whole lot more serious than food. I do have a story to tell you. And once I’m done, I hope you’ll understand why it’s so vital that we start moving again immediately.”
25
I expected Marlon to settle back into his chair, ready to tell a story, but instead he leaned forward, his eyes burning, his voice tense. His entire face changed from the man I’d known up to this point—the relatively easy-going would-be vet—to a man I wouldn’t have been surprised to see on a battlefield.
A man who was in charge of other men. A man who was used to making hard decisions to make sure that those men survived the night. Survived the battle.
